Divorce Video Therapy (2018) is a 10-episode dramedy web series. View the 10-minute series highlight reel here Stream all episodes here Director's Commentary Don’t worry, it’s not all misery and regret—there’s plenty of comic relief. This series is for online viewing, where adult attention spans revert to that of an infant—or maybe a 7-year-old (4 minutes tops for videos? 8 on a good day?) You may wonder why filmmakers keep plodding upstream like salmon, dropping dead at the end of the journey just to spawn yet another web series (which, tragically, will probably not get very many views). The answer is: it’s hopefully a stepping stone to something bigger. The content serves the purpose of being a demo showreel for the actors and the writer-director. Thanks to SAG-AFTRA and its New Media Agreement, I’ve been able to connect with a large handful of very talented New York actors. This film project was produced on zero budget, and I never could have come close to pulling this off without that precious resource. By early 2016, my concept for this series was in a larval state. It’s based on themes from a feature screenplay by a different name (much more on that in future posts). By April of 2016, I had a vague sketch of 5 or 6 characters: the one whose husband ditched her out of the blue after 22 years, the one whose husband slept with her best friend, etc. A jolt of inspiration arrived when the startup app Vibbidi was doing person-to-person outreach with filmmakers. It was positioning itself as the Next Big Thing in shortform video. They were hyping a huge June 1 launch. I Skyped with the guy, and it was a nice conversation. Episodes had to be 60 seconds max—how the hell do you do that with drama? They were offering very significant prize money: each month, there would be an in-app film festival. Okay, very cool. This enabled me to really focus and create some killer one-minute scripts with multiple characters and their one-liners. June 1 arrived and the crickets, they were a-chirping: the app was MIA. Month after month, no updates. I guess they ran out of funding before launching—hmm… As a side note, it eventually was re-branded as a social sharing music app. Anyway, I was already in full creator mode and primed to get this series going. Even though the characters had no backstory, I decided to announce that the series would be in production by late summer/fall 2016. I created a 60-second monologue for actors to tackle via a self-taped audition (not too short or too long). I got a good amount of response, with a wide range of acting ability. Casting the primary 7 divorce video client characters fell into place seamlessly. One of them had to drop out, and I had the incredible fortune of finding Annaliese Kirby (Faith in Episode 4) as her replacement. In the fall of 2016, I started filming scenes by the Connecticut shore. Then on to NYC in 2017, which I never could have accomplished without DP Jan Klier. (What was I gonna do—take the train in with my camcorder and travel tripod? That ain’t filmmaking.) We also captured some great New Jersey footage in Alpine, Closter and Paramus. This project blossomed into something much larger in scope than I originally envisioned. That’s why it took 2 years to produce 10 episodes. I’ve been striving to make it cinematic, as opposed to just a “talking heads” series with a mockumentary tone. It’s a matter of “Show me, don’t tell me”. When characters are discussing their ex at length, it becomes imperative to cut to a flashback or even extended flashback sequences. Divorce Video Therapy is about the human condition, and how we cope with adversity.
Whether you are someone who has been directly affected by divorce or you are an indie film enthusiast, I hope you find this web series engaging. Alex Fuller Writer/Director alexfullermedia.com
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